


strike a spark

by megalopunny



Series: art kids [3]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 19:21:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14900490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/megalopunny/pseuds/megalopunny
Summary: [art kids au] it had been so easy to promise at the time, last year, when zack knew he was going away for college. they’d stay together. they’d work it out. he believed in them, he’d said, and aerith had smiled and pressed her face to his chest and prayed he was right.





	strike a spark

It had been so easy to promise at the time, last year, when Zack knew he was going away for college. They’d stay together. They’d work it out. He believed in them, he’d said, and Aerith had smiled and pressed her face to his chest and prayed he was right. 

To his credit, he’s always the first to plan a visit. It’s not often, but every few weeks, his truck will roll into her driveway and he’ll step out into the sun with his huge army surplus duffel bag and she won’t leave his side for anything. 

He comes for her birthday, bringing her presents as though he wasn't her real gift. It’s only for a few days and so she cherishes him, tries to hold him close enough so he’ll somehow stay with her even when he’s gone again. She steals his hoodie that weekend, and sleeps with it after he leaves. She hides it in a bag in her closet so it never stops smelling like him. 

She takes it out more and more often as the weeks go by, until it becomes another pillow in her bed. If her moms notice, they don’t say anything about it. 

It’s harder to be without him than she thought it would be. Their lives are completely separate. She keeps going to school, tries hard to smile and tries hard to hang out with friends and keep her grades up and be her own person. It’s stupid, she tells herself. You’re stupid. You’re pathetic and needy and what kind of woman does that make you? 

She misses him anyway. 

What does he even do in college? Who are his new friends? Names without faces. What’s Angeal like? Kunsel? Does he sit around in his dorm pining for her, too? 

Spring creeps in and it’s been too long since she’s seen him. He sounded upset over the phone, apologizing over and over, that with his exams, he can’t make it, and she’d nodded and agreed and didn’t make a fuss or argue about it at all. 

For the next week, she’s lost, spaced out in class, ignoring her friends’ texts and her homework. On friday night, she puts on Zack’s hoodie right as she gets home. She only smells herself on it. Her shampoo, her body spray. She doesn’t cry. That would be too much. She won’t let herself cry over missing a boy. She’s eighteen now, an adult, and she won’t cry over a boy. She tells herself this over and over, sitting in bed, staring out the window. If she tries hard enough, her sadness is outside herself. It hardly seems real at all. She shouldn’t be so upset. She’ll watch the sunset and cry it out and wallow and then deal with it. She’ll have a fun weekend all on her own. 

Smokefall comes before sunset, the marine layer bringing in waves of clouds over the neighborhood. It’s like a betrayal. It’s unbearable. Something insider her shivers, tenses up. 

The idea comes together all at once. She’s packed and out of the house in an hour. She’d left a note for her moms, of course. “Gone for the weekend. ” She hoped they wouldn’t worry, knew they would. 

The bus north is cheaper than the train by a few dollars, but Aerith likes the idea of a long train ride more, like she’s a movie heroine during the war. A surprise visit. It’s like a love song. 

Will he mind her there? Will he be angry, or annoyed, or have time for her at all? 

Who cares? Who cares. She needs this. She needs to do what she can to calm the worst voice in her head, that whispers that Zack has moved on, found someone else, someone closer and older and less needy. 

She wishes she could sleep. It’s dark out now, and Zack is four hundred miles away. The train won’t get there until morning. There’s nothing to even see out the windows, just anonymous small towns and the lonely black sea. The train shakes, hums, constant. She imagines the moon is keeping her company and, with her head resting on the bag on her lap, she closes her eyes. 

 

It’s six in the morning when she steps out into the station, seven when she finishes her coffee and finally calls her moms, ten when her cab arrives on the campus. She’d done her makeup in the train station bathroom, changed into sandals and her favorite dress, put her hair up, then down again. She’s ready. 

But she doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know how to find Zack. There's so many more people than she expected. The campus could swallow her. Is there an office she should go to? Would they just give out his dorm room like that, to some weird girl that doesn't even go there? Maybe surprising him was a bad idea. 

She asks around. Big guys that look like Zack, tall and solid and likely athletes. Some know him, but it's a girl with red hair that knows his exact dorm, lean and muscled in shorts that aren't the least bit weather appropriate. Aerith pulls down on her dress, covers up her thighs. 

The redhead doesn't seem bothered at all. She even gives Aerith directions. 

At the lobby in his building, the security guard won’t tell her anything. Zack will have to come down and sign her in, the guard explains. He doesn’t care that it would ruin the surprise. It’s just the rules. She freezes there. 

It’s fine, isn’t it? This is enough. She should call Zack and let him know she’s here. He’d still be excited. He’s just like that. 

But what if he doesn’t come? And she stands here alone, waiting for him while he’s off with some other girl? Everyone would know just how pathetic she is. Like her chubby thighs under her skirt, she’s suddenly aware of how heavy her bags are, how sore her arms have gotten from holding them. Her eyes burn. 

She unlocks her phone. 

“Hey, are you Aerith? ” 

She snaps around, presses her phone to her chest. She doesn't recognize the guy talking to her. He’s built solid, like Zack, with too much hair to see most of his face. Her smile is frozen awkwardly on. 

“Yeah? ” She didn’t mean it to sound like a question. “Do I know you? ” 

The guy laughs, shakes his head. “Kinda, but not really. Zack’s my roommate. He talks about you all the time. ” 

“He does? ” She puts her bags down, flushed. 

“Yeah! Which is weird, since he didn't say anything about you coming. ” 

“It’s supposed to be a surprise, but…” Aerith motions to the guard at his desk. 

“Oh, hey, no problem! I got you. ” At the desk, the guy talks to the security guard, signs a paper, salutes him, and comes back to her, grinning. “I signed you in as my guest. You’re all clear now. ” 

The guy, who introduces himself as Kunsel, takes Aerith’s bag and shows her up to their dorm, talking nonstop about Zack. “He’s hopeless,” Kunsel laughs, and wonders out loud how Zack even got this far, with his attention span and his little kid personality, and especially how he ever hooked a girl like Aerith. She deserves better. Aerith agrees, and winks, in spite of the pit in her stomach. 

Kunsel goes inside the room first to check for Zack, and comes out shaking his head. “He’s probably out on the field,” he says. “You can leave your stuff here. ” 

She nods, silent, her lips tight. Then Kunsel opens the door. She knows instantly which side of the room is Zack’s; half the wall is covered in pictures. She can see herself in them. When she puts her bags on Zack’s bed, she takes a closer look. Pictures from prom, even from normal dates they’ve been on, and, embarrassingly, a selfie he must have printed from her Instagram. She turns to Kunsel, her mouth gaping stupidly. Her face is on fire. 

“Yeahhh,” Kunsel scoffs. “Told you i knew you. ” 

 

Out on the field, the sun is an orange glow over the city buildings. Aerith feels the wet grass in her toes. She can see Zack there, shadowed, talking to friends. She’s happy to watch for a few minutes, allow herself that shyness, while berating herself for that shyness. It’s when he laughs, in the way that he does, full bodied, sincere, and it echoes to her, that she starts crying. She knows she’s wanted to all day from the relief it brings her, like the relief of seeing him again, and she knows that she loves him. It’s real, it makes her jealous and clingy and scared, so fucking scared, because it’s real. And she doesn’t know what that means for her, or her future, or theirs, but right now it means she needs him. 

The timer on the stadium lights turns on. She kicks off her sandals and runs to him, bare feet on the grass, crashing into him with a sob that’s lost somewhere inbetween her laughter.


End file.
